webGuinée / La crise de l'An 2007

Le point de non-retour

Protesters held for Guinea strike violence

Independent Online News
Cape Town South Africa
2007-01-16 15:55:25

Conakry - Scores of protesters have been arrested in Conakry following clashes with police as a general strike against President Lansana Conte continued to paralyse Guinea, an official said Tuesday.

Police fired rubber bullets and used tear gas against demonstrators on Monday after they set up barricades in three districts of the capital and began hurling stones at police, said the deputy security director of Conakry, Mamadi Mansare.

"We arrested 62 people yesterday," Mansare told public radio.

"We're sorting them out to find out who did what," added Mansare, who denied reports from witnesses that four people were slightly wounded in the violence.

Most shops and offices in Conakry remained shut as workers continued to heed the open-ended strike called by the west African country's two big labour unions and backed by 14 opposition
parties.

The union leaders and opposition are angry over Conte's decision to release a wealthy businessman and a former government minister facing corruption charges from jail.

Clashes between demonstrators and police first occurred on Saturday and took a more serious turn on Monday in the port capital's Simbaya, Dar-es-Salam and Bambeto districts.

Conakry Governor Amadou Camara on Sunday banned public gatherings in the city and early Tuesday, police, gendarmes and presidential guard troops kept up their watch over main road junctions after deploying on Monday.

Conte, who is 72 and has ruled the country since 1984, in December went in person to the prison to free Mamadou Sylla, one of Guinea's wealthiest men who used to run the national bosses' federation, and former government minister Fode Soumah.

Both men had been charged with embezzlement and faced trial.

The president met union leaders on Friday and asked them to give him their demands in writing, Arabiatou Serah Diallo, secretary general of the National Confederation of Workers of Guinea (CNGT), said.

"I'm an elected man, you're elected, each of us has to account to our electorate and I'm waiting for your proposals," Diallo said Conte had told the delegation from the CNTG and its Union of
Workers of Guinea colleagues.

Conte first seized power in the former French colony in a 1984 military coup and has won three presidential elections since 1995, but the main opposition boycotted the 2003 vote.

webGuinée / La crise de l'An 2007

Le point de non-retour

Protesters held for Guinea strike violence

Sapa-AFP